Increasing Treatment Integrity Through Negative Reinforcement: Effects on Teacher and Student Behavior

The current study examined the extent to which treatment integrity was increased and maintained for 4 teachers in their regular classroom settings as a result of performance feedback and negative reinforcement. Teachers received daily written feedback about their accuracy in implementing an intervention and were able to avoid meeting with a consultant to practice missed steps by implementing the procedure with 100% integrity. Treatment integrity increased for all 4 teachers and gains were maintained over time. Decreases in off-task behavior were observed for 3 of the 4 student participants. Results suggest that an intervention package of performance feedback and negative reinforcement may be a viable, time-efficient technique for increasing the integrity of plan implementation by teachers in the classroom.